Cleaning and oiling balance and jewels

[Plato]

43 minutes ago, Paul80 said:

Hi.

I have just gone over to Renata after trying Perchloroethylene, which I found to be useless, found it took hours to evaporate of the balance and was not convinced it cleaned anything.

Mind you the Perchloroethylene did come from eBay so might have been anything in the bottle, as you have no guarantee you get what you pay for on eBay

 

The stuff I have works well but I mainly use it to soak balance jewels. I stick the balance in the wash with the rest of the movement. 

[jdm]

11 hours ago, Plato said:

No it's not, have a look on ebay £15 for 500ml! 

Not yet a complete ban perhaps, but it's striclty regulated because of its toxicity - please note I am just stating a regulations fact, not saying that one gets harmed by occasionally using it. I have attached a document with a summary of these regulations starting page 7.

 

2 hours ago, Paul80 said:

you have no guarantee you get what you pay for on eBay 

I do not agree with these blanket statements. Ebay is just a website, not the seller, which you can effectively evaluate independently. And as with other online purchases you're actually well because the right of return, and the PayPal "not as described" powerful claim policy.

 

2 hours ago, oldhippy said:

Get yourself a can of Ronsonol to clean hairsprings or the complete balance it is safe with shellac.

Worth always to remind casual readers that this is just your personal suggestion, Lighter fluid it's not an horological product, it's not recommended by any maker, school or book, and cost 4 - 5 time per quantity as opposes to petroleoum ether of guaranteed purity.

CINET_European Legislation PERC.pdf

[oldhippy]

Not just my personal suggestion. It was my master who told be about it and he was a top watchmaker, in fact most of my knowledge in horology comes from him.   

[Paul80]

17 minutes ago, jdm said:

I do not agree with these blanket statements. Ebay is just a website, not the seller, which you can effectively evaluate independently. And as with other online purchases you're actually well because the right of return, and the PayPal "not as described" powerful claim policy.

Great Statement but not being a Chemist how do I prove what is supposed to be in the bottle is not in the bottle?

If it does contain what its supposed to contain then I found it rubbish for hairsprings as it was far to slow evaporating.

[Paul80]

2 hours ago, oldhippy said:

Get yourself a can of Ronsonol to clean hairsprings or the complete balance it is safe with shellac. You will need a a small pot with a screw lid as it evaporates very quick, you can leave parts in it for days and no harm will come to them. I used it for years and never had any problems with it. 

I will now wait for jdm to criticise Ronsonol as he always does. 

Hi

There appears to be two types of Ronsonol, the Old version Contained Naphtha and the New Version contains Petroleum Distillate which I understand is not Naphtha

Which are you using

I have I purity Naphtha is that OK to use.

Paul

[jdm]

8 minutes ago, Paul80 said:

Great Statement but not being a Chemist how do I prove what is supposed to be in the bottle is not in the bottle?

Is not? Same with any purchase we make, we chose based on the producer and seller reputation. Not the fact that is bought on Ebay, Amazon, or whatever other source,.There is also a document called MSDS that details composition and hazards, I have attached an example.

 

2 minutes ago, Paul80 said:

There appears to be two types of Ronsonol, the Old version Contained Naphtha and the New Version contains Petroleum Distillate which I understand is not Naphtha

Naphta is a very generic name, it means different thing is in different contexts and different countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naphtha

In any case t's a distillate of petrol, exactly like motor petrol or diesel fuel etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_naphtha

wercs.pdf

[nickelsilver]

I don't remember which thread it was with the never ending Ronsonol/benzine/naphtha debate but I mentioned some of this there-

 

my local chemist sells Benzine 60/95, ; this is a really standard product every watch and clock workshop here uses. He told me it's the same as Ronsonol, just more pure. He uses it in his Zippo, I use it in my camp stove, and also for cleaning some parts of watches and clocks.

 

Some years back I tried to get clever and buy some Naphtha, which I thought was lighter fluid. At this time I was trying not to use benzine too much and for some reason thought Naphtha was safer. He thought it was a weird thing to buy and told me to use benzine, I was pretty sure I was smarter than him on this. It was sooo stinky that I still have probably 998ml of the liter I bought.

 

What we call Benzine, the good one that works well for watches, is:

CAS # 64742-49-0    Benzine, aka Petroleum Ether, aka Hydrotreated Light Naphtha (and some other names)

 

The stinky horrible stuff I thought I was being clever buying is:

CAS # 64742-95-6     Solvent Naphtha, aka Petroleum Naphtha light aromatic

 

Seem pretty similar but I will never open the Solvent Naptha again.

[oldhippy]

1 hour ago, Paul80 said:

Hi

There appears to be two types of Ronsonol, the Old version Contained Naphtha and the New Version contains Petroleum Distillate which I understand is not Naphtha

Which are you using

I have I purity Naphtha is that OK to use.

Paul

I used it way back in the 70's & 80's so at that time there was only one. Another good thing with Ronsonol it is very good for removing the muck after you have removed a sticky ticket. 

[jdm]

49 minutes ago, nickelsilver said:

I don't remember which thread it was with the never ending Ronsonol/benzine/naphtha debate

But this one started with a different question:
Which specialized hairspring cleaning fluid is best?
And another good question is:
Is a specialized hairspring cleaning fluid really necessary?

Your opinion?

[nickelsilver]

10 minutes ago, jdm said:

But this one started with a different question:
Which specialized hairspring cleaning fluid is best?
And another good question is:
Is a specialized hairspring cleaning fluid really necessary?

Your opinion?

I clean the balance complete in the cleaning machine; if for some reason I need to re-clean, ideally it's back through the machine, haha. But I will clean them in fresh clean benzine too. I haven't had or used One Dip or similar in 20 something years.

[Plato]

5 hours ago, jdm said:

I do not agree with these blanket statements. Ebay is just a website, not the seller, which you can effectively evaluate independently. And as with other online purchases you're actually well because the right of return, and the PayPal "not as described" powerful claim policy.

Too right. eBay gets a bad reputation from the tiny minority of rogue traders and dodgy individuals! It's 10 times better than AliExpress etc.

[Paul80]

Ok, I will rephrase my eBay statement as it appears to have offended some.

The problem with most if not all large on-line selling platforms like eBay, Amazon, AliExpress, Banggood etc is that they are just a selling front to a huge number of independent traders and among those traders there are some you sell counterfeit products, some deliberately and some without their knowledge.

Buying from these traders is sometimes a big risk, I have in the past bought Al sorts of things that were packaged as a genuine original item but they ended up just being poor quality fakes, these have been things like batteries, memory cards, tools, chemicals, even glue.

Can't remember the last time a shop sold me counterfeit stuff over the counter.

There is that better 

[jdm]

12 hours ago, Paul80 said:

Buying from these traders is sometimes a big risk, I have in the past bought Al sorts of things that were packaged as a genuine original item but they ended up just being poor quality fakes, these have been things like batteries, memory cards, tools, chemicals, even glue.

True. So as mentioned above, it's about consumer's good judgment at the moment of purchase:

• Do not buy at the lowest price, as when the price is too good to be true.
• Buy from an official shop, as e.g. there are many on Amazon.

That being said, worth to remind again for the casual reader about PayPal's (and also Amazon, Ebay and AliExpress, plus the card issuer in last instance) protection about counterfeit items. No need to return the item, just a picture of two and clearly explain how one can tell it's counterfeit. They will immediately refund. After a number of cases, the seller will be banned from the platform.

[Bauertime]

I never had a problem with acetone, to clean hair springs. Just a quick dunk and place on paper towel. Then suspend and blow dry. I've never had a roller jewel come off in 20 years of doing it.

[mikepilk]

On 9/3/2021 at 11:46 AM, nickelsilver said:

What we call Benzine, the good one that works well for watches, is:

CAS # 64742-49-0    Benzine, aka Petroleum Ether, aka Hydrotreated Light Naphtha (and some other names)

You can buy this from chemical suppliers from ebay. I used it (and still do) in a small ultrasonic for cleaning all parts, before a final rinse in isopropanol to remove oily residues. 

It works well, but I have since switched to Elma WF Pro cleaner. You can just hand dip if you don't have a machine. It is much better at removing dirt (the detergents?) than Naphtha and leaves a nice shine on the plates. 
I rinse with isopropanol - but only a minute or so in the ultrasonic for parts with shellac - balance and pallet.